Camping Confidential
by Cora Summers
Summary: AU-ish. While camping on a long weekend, a woman stumbles into her site that will change her life forever.


The characters are the property of Dick Wolf and NBC.

* * *

Camping Confidential

Signing off on the last of her paperwork, Olivia looked up towards her partner's desk. "Hey El, you got anything you want me to work on before I cut outta here?" She asked him. She tried not to make it sound as though she wanted him to say no.

Elliot looked up from his own work. He had been planning on calling it a day soon and he knew his partner had plans. As much as he wanted to, he couldn't bring himself to mess with her. "Nah. I'm heading out in a few anyway," he said. He then watched as Olivia started to gather her things to leave. "Camping this weekend?"

Olivia briefly looked up. "Yep. Four days in a row of uninterrupted time off. And the best part is I'll be out three hours away and out of cell phone range."

Elliot laughed at his partner's antics. He, better than anyone, knew what kind of stress this job bought with it and he was glad Olivia had found a productive way to get rid of it. "Just make sure you call us when you get back Monday night so we know you're safe and made it back ok."

Olivia laughed again. "Now I'm glad I didn't have any siblings. Anymore older brothers like the three of you and I wouldn't be able to have any fun." She started walking towards the door. Before she could walk out though she heard Elliot call out.

"Smart ass," he yelled. This sent her into another laugh. Watching her leave, Elliot shook his head and got back to work. He had a sudden urge to finish up and get back home to his wife and kids.

Twenty minutes later, with Chinese in hand, Olivia walked into her apartment. She mentally went through the list of what she needed to do before she loaded up the car and went to bed. After eating, she went to her already pack luggage and started to go through one last time, just to make sure she had everything.

She had her tent, a sleeping bag, an extra in case it got cold, two camping pads, a camp saw and camp ax, fire sticks, a snake bite kit, a first aid kit, a solar shower, a compass, a tent peg mallet, camping potty, glow in the dark Off bracelets, canteens, light sticks, an LED camping lantern, camping dishes, a fire top toast maker, and a floating lantern which was just the name for a really big flash light.

Satisfied she had everything she needed, Olivia repacked her things and brought it down to her car. After getting back up to her apartment, she looked at the clock and saw it was already going on nine. She decided she would call it a night. It was going to be an early morning.

Hearing her alarm go off at five-thirty, Olivia groaned as she slowly woke up. She took a quick shower to wake up as much as she could without a cup of coffee. After walking out of the bathroom and getting dressed in jeans, a plain white t-shirt and light blue button down shirt, she walked into the kitchen to get her liquid caffeine. Remembering she hadn't packed it last night, Olivia reached down under the sink and grabber her camping coffee pot and made a note to grab more coffee on the way out of the city. The last thing she grabbed before locking her apartment was the cooler filled with food she couldn't catch, and her fishing pole and tackle box. She figured the boys had gone through the trouble to get them for her, it was the least she could do to use them.

The drive to her campsite was uneventful. She arrived around ten in the morning and began to set up camp. After setting up her tent, putting down the camping pads and one of the sleeping bags, she set about gathering wood. She would start the fire as it was getting dark. Digging out a fire pit, Olivia lined it with some of the larger stones she found around the area.

She took a step back and surveyed her work. Satisfied with her accomplishment, she grabbed her fishing equipment and went off towards the lake. She was pleased to see it wasn't that far from where she was sat up. Olivia took a look around and saw there were several large rocks along the shore. She walked over to one of them and sat down to catch her dinner.

After she had been sat on the stone for about twenty minutes, Olivia caught some movement out of the corner of her eye. Turning her head to take in the full scene, she noticed a dark haired man and a blonde woman about one hundred feet away. It looked as though they were in some kind of argument. Olivia's assumption was confirmed as she saw the woman slap the man and storm off into the woods. From the look of shock and pain on the man's face, Olivia was quick to guess she wouldn't want to be on the receiving end of one of those slaps. As she watched the man walk off in the other direction, towards a car, Olivia shrugged the incident off. She returned her attention to the water and waited for a bite.

A couple hours later, Olivia had caught enough for dinner and breakfast the next morning. She got back to her site and set about cutting and cleaning her catch. She made sure to take the parts of the fish she wasn't going to eat and bury them in the woods, far enough away from her where she wouldn't have to worry about animals, but close enough where she wouldn't get lost.

Before she started her fire, she took her canteens, coffee pot, and a small bucket down to the water. Filling them all up, Olivia once again returned to her campsite. She put the canteens by her cooler, the coffee pot on the campfire rack to get the water heating, and the bucket next to the fire pit.

Once the fire was going and had gotten hot enough, she put the fish on the rack. As she settled back to wait for them to cook, she heard the rustle of some branches. At first she was going to chalk it up to the wind until she heard the snap of a twig. Instinct had her reaching for her gun, thankful she had strapped her off duty weapon to her ankle. Pointing it in the direction the noise came from, Olivia had one thought running through her mind. "Please don't let it be a bear."


End file.
